Mr Rudyard Kipling and Bruggksmith--New Zealand--Its Climate
--People--Fortune--Ned's Chum--Sir George Grey.
Whilst I was in Australia I found in the pages of the _Melbourne Argus_
a very remarkable poem and an equally remarkable prose story which had
originally appeared in one of the great Anglo-Indian journals. They were
alike anonymous, but it was quite evident that they came from the same
hand. A few months later they were known to be the work of Rudyard
Kipling; and when I returned to London the new writer was at the zenith
of the literary firmament and was shining there like a comet. For the
first few years of his career he looked inexhaustible, and whilst he
was still at his most dazzling best, he produced a litde masterpiece
of roaring farce which, for sheer broad fun and high animal spirits,
surpasses anything else I know in English fiction. The story is
called _Bruggksmith_. I myself read it and still read it with intense
enjoyment, dashed with a very singular surprise, for the principal
episode in that story had actually happened to me some years before
Mr Kipling told it, and I had related it scores and scores of times in
public and in private. I have a theory about this matter which I shall
here make it my business to unfold. But I must first relate my own
adventure. It was between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and I
was dining quite alone in the Grand Hotel at Dunedin, when a stranger
entered and took his seat beside me. I paid no heed to him at first, but
by and by he laid a hand upon my sleeve and said: “I believe that you
are Mr David Christie Murray?” I pleaded guilty and turning round to my
companion found him to be a person of a sea-faring aspect with a stubbly
beard of two or three days' growth. He was smartly attired in a suit
of blue pilot cloth with brass anchor buttons, and there was a band
of tarnished gold lace around the peaked cap which he nursed upon his
knees. His accent was of the broadest Scotch and his nationality was
unmistakably to be read in his sun-tanned, weather-beaten face. It was
pretty evident that he had been drinking, though he was by no means
drunk. “I'm proud and delighted beyond measure to meet ye,” he began. “I
hope ye'll do me the honour to shake hands with me.” He went through
the ceremony with great apparent enthusiasm, and I had, indeed, some
difficulty in recovering my hand from him. “I'm a ship's engineer,”
he went on, “and I can tell ye, sir, that for years past ye've been my
treasured companion; through mony and mony a lonely nicht on the rolling
ocean yer books hev been my treasured friends, and mony and mony's the
time I've laffed and cried over ye. Mon, but I'm pleased and proud
to meet ye--pleased and proud.” I expressed my gratification at this
statement as well as I could and he said, suiting the action to the
word: “Ye'll not mind my ringing for a glass of whisky? I shall esteem
it an honour to take a glass with ye and to be able to boast hereafter
that ye once stood a drink to me.” He got his drink and absorbed
it gravely, with a wish that I might enjoy long life, health and
prosperity. Now there was never a man who was better pleased than I
am to learn that he has given pleasure to another by his work. I dare
imitate the candour of Oliver Wendell Holmes and confess that I am fond
of sweetmeats, but one can have too much even of sugar-plums, and I was
getting a little weary of my friend's ecstatics when he began to change
his tone. “Perhaps,” he said, “ye won't think me impertinent if I say
that your work is sometimes curiously unequal. Ye've written a lot in
yer time that's very far from being worthy of ye. D'ye know that, now
I begin to think of it, I'm inclined to fancy that ye're aboot the most
unequal workman I've ever made myself familiarly acquainted with.” He
maundered along on this theme for two or three minutes and at last
he clinched the nail. “A lot of what ye've done,” he told me, “is the
merest piffle, and if ye were to ask me for a candid judgment, I should
say that ye've never written but one work which has really expressed
your genius. I can't mind the name of it just at the moment, but there's
nae doot at all about it; there's real power in it, there's plot,
there's construction, there's style, there's knowledge of character.
Mon! it's a great book; I'll mind the name of it in a minute. Ay! I've
got it--it's the only thing ye ever wrote that maks ye worth your salt
as a literairy mon and the title of it is _Lady Audleys Secret!_”
Now no man, neither Mr Kipling nor any other, could possibly have
evolved from his imagination a story like that which had already, years
ago, translated itself into fact. Mr Kipling is a man of such prodigious
resource and experience that he is the last man in the world to accuse
of a plagiarism. It is just within the bounds of possibility, of course,
that he may have heard some version of my story, but the theory to which
I cling is that there was, somewhere about that time, a Scottish ship's
engineer who played off that particular form of humour on two writing
men whom chance threw in his way, and that his victims were Mr Kipling
and myself.
I was confidently assured in Australia that I might see New Zealand
thoroughly in the course of a two months' trip, and when I set out to
visit it, it was my purpose not to extend my stay greatly beyond that
limit. In effect, I found a year all too litde for my purpose.
The physical aspects of the country alone are so extraordinary and
delightful that a lover of nature finds it hard to withdraw himself from
the influence of their charm. New Zealanders delight to speak of their
country as the Wonderland of the South. They are justified, and more
than justified. The northern island is an amazement, but its gruesome
volcanic grotesqueries please less than the scenic splendours of its
southern neighbour. The sounds of the west coast more than rival the
Norwegian fjords. Te Anau and Manipouri and Wakatipu are as fine as
the lakes of Switzerland. The forests, irreverently called “bush,” are
beyond words for beauty. A little energy, a little courage, might make
New Zealand the pet recreation ground of half the world. The authorities
are already filling its lakes with trout, and will by-and-by people
its forests with game. There is a very large portion of country which,
except for purposes of sport and travel, is not likely to be utilized
by man. The lake trout grow to enormous size, and as they multiply, and
food grows comparatively scarcer, they are learning to take the fly.
It was an understood thing for years that there was no sport for the
fly-fisher with the trout at Wakatipu, but that theory has died out, for
the very simple reason that the facts have altered. There is no reason
in nature why an acclimatisation society should not succeed in a very
few years in making the south-west portion of the middle island an
actual paradise to the sportsman. It is the plain duty of New Zealand to
invite the outside world to enter its borders, and, for once in a way,
a plain duty is recognised. I shall remember, so long as I remember
anything, the three avalanches I saw and heard thundering down the side
of Mount Pembroke as I sat on a boat in the glassy waters of Milford
Sound. In many and many an hour I shall see Wet-Jacket Arm and Dusky
Sound again with their vast precipices, luxuriant forests, and rejoicing
cataracts. I shall dream, thank heaven, of the awe and worship I felt as
the steamer crept round the edge of Rat's Point, and little by little,
one by one, the white wonders of the Earnslaw range slid into view,
until at last the whole marvellous, unspeakable panorama stood revealed,
a spectacle the world may perhaps rival elsewhere, but cannot surpass.
So long as I remember anything I shall remember a summer day on the
banks of the Poseiden. I sat on a fallen log on the track which leads to
Lake Ada; and the robins, in their beautiful fearless unfamiliarity with
man, perched on my feet, and one feathered inquirer ventured even to my
knee. The sunlight steeped the thick foliage overhead until the leaves
shone transparent with colours of topaz and of emerald. The moss on
the trees was silver-grey and vivid green, and there were fingolds of
vermilion and cadmium, and scaly growths of pure cobalt blue; the most
amazing and prodigious riot of colour the mind can conceive. The river
ran below with many a caverned undertone.
In Sir John Everett Millais' latest days, I met him at a cricket
match at Lord's, and made some attempt to describe to him the truly
indescribable riot and glory of the colour of the New Zealand forests.
He turned to me with an odd mixture of petulance and humour and asked
me: “Why the devil didn't you tell me all this when I could paint?”
I believe he was the only man alive who could have translated those
splendours truly.
It is the desire of all good New Zealanders that the beauties of their
country should be advertised. I offer this humble contribution to that
end with a willing heart. I shall be thankful to my latest day to
have seen those beauties which I have been able only to hint at. The
traveller who misses New Zealand leaves unseen the country which, take
it all in all, is probably the loveliest in the world. The climate
varies from stern to mild. That of Auckland is warm and sluggish; that
of Dunedin keen, inspiring. Situate midway between the two you find
perfection. Napier will be the sanatorium of that side of the world one
of these days. All over New Zealand one meets people who went out there
to die, twenty, thirty, forty years ago, and who are living yet, robust
and hale. The air is fatal to phthisis, as it is also in Australia.
The most terrible foe of the British race is disarmed in these favoured
lands. Take it in the main, the climate of New Zealand is fairly
represented by that of Great Britain. The southern parts remind one
of Scotland, the northern of Devon and Cornwall. The variety of which
Lesser Britain has so much reason to complain is absent. The British
climate is idealised in New Zealand.
This fact alone is one of the utmost importance in the estimation of
the future of the race. In similar environment the British people have
already pretty clearly shown what they can do, and in New Zealand I
found myself absolutely unable to trace the beginning of a variation
from the British breed. Dunedin, allowing for an influx of Southern
Britons, might be Aberdeen; Christ-church, population and all, might
be planted in Warwickshire, and no tourist would know that it was not
indigenous there. They call their local stream the Avon, and boating
there some idle summer days, I easily dreamed myself at home again, and
within bow-shot of the skyward-pointing spire which covers the bones
of Shakespeare. It is, I believe, a fact that the stream is christened
after another river than that which owes its glamour to the poet's name,
but in a case of this kind mere fact matters little, and the inhabitants
themselves are, for the most part, quite willing to ignore it.
It was in New Zealand that I made my first practical acquaintance with
the stage. I have already spoken of that remarkable child actor whom I
brought over to England and introduced to the London public in my own
comedy of _Ned's Chum_. I saw him first in _Little Lord Fauntleroy_,
and I expressed myself in such terms about him to his manager that I was
offered a commission to write a play in which he should be the principal
figure. I was making holiday just then, and having nothing to detain me,
I anchored myself in one of the quietest places in the world and threw
myself into my task with so much vigour that in a fortnight the comedy
was completed, and within a month from its inception was produced at
Auckland. Sir George Grey who was then, though he had long retired from
office, the tutelary genius of the place, supplied me with the means
for the production of such a stage illusion as can hardly have been seen
elsewhere. The second act of the comedy was supposed to take place in
the heart of the New Zealand bush. “That's a thing,” said Sir George,
“which no scene-painter's brush can imitate; you must have the real
thing upon the boards.” And straightway he gave me an order for the
cutting down of any number of forest trees I might require in his own
grounds at Cawai. How these were got into the theatre I do not remember,
but the scene produced by their aid was the most perfect and beautiful I
can remember to have seen. They were braced by invisible wires, and
the severed trunks were concealed behind mounds of real forest moss
and cart-loads of last year's withered leaves. There was an artificial
waterfall on a level with the upper entrance and the back cloth conveyed
the impression of an illimitable vista. As anybody may guess who has the
slightest knowledge of work behind the scenes, the preparation of this
spectacle and its removal necessitated two tediously protracted waits,
but the audience appeared to think that the show atoned for tedium, and
our only three performances in Auckland were an overwhelming popular
success. The author--good, easy man--naturally attributed that success
at the time to the charm of the comedy, but though that went well
enough in other places later on, it never afterwards secured the same
enthusiastic acceptance. It was the realism and originality of the
forest scene which did the trick. Its glories were evanescent, and on
the third night the characters, who had moved amidst all the splendours
of full summer, were straying under brown and withered autumn leaves.
There are few of us who have not discovered that the affability of a
distinguished man may be amongst the most disagreeable of all human
characteristics, though when one encounters the real thing which has
its root in nature and not in policy it is certainly amongst the
most delightful. In Sir George Grey one knew it instinctively to be
spontaneous; the man seemed to have been born out of his time; he was a
survival from another age, In South Africa, South Australia and in
New Zealand he proved himself almost an ideal manipulator of men, and
wherever he went he reaped a harvest of personal affection. Nobody
meeting him without a knowledge of his record would have guessed that
he was in the presence of a man distinguished alike as a diplomatist, a
soldier and a scholar; he would have been conscious only of a singularly
unassuming urbanity and charm. His manner with children was patriarchal.
I was strolling one day during my stay in Auckland with that child
actor for whom I had written my comedy of _Ned's Chum_, when we met the
ex-governor of the colony at the foot of Mount Eden, now a green turfed
slope and at one time a volcano. “Look here,” said the boy to the
venerable welder of Empire, “you take my ball and see how far you can
throw it uphill.” “Certainly,” said Sir George. He threw the ball to a
considerable distance and it settled in a hollow on the hillside. The
child raced after it, and before he returned the veteran statesman and
myself had each forgotten all about him and were deep in the history of
Auckland. By-and-by the young gentleman came back again and tugged
at the skirt of the diplomatist's frock coat. “I've been standing up
there,” he complained, “for three or four minutes calling coo-ee, and
you never answered once!” “Did I not?” the statesman answered, “now that
was very wrong of me. You try me again and you will see that I shall not
misbehave myself next time.” The child sped away in pursuit of the ball
which Sir George once more threw for him, and in a litde while we heard
his call. The old gentleman responded to it and the boy came racing back
to have the game repeated, and throughout the whole of our ramble which
lasted for an hour or two, the game was carried on with a tireless
persistence on the child's side and an unflagging patience on Sir
George's. He was talking to me with great animation about the Maori
legends which he had himself been the first to collect and translate,
but he never neglected to respond to the child's call, and left him, I
am sure, under the impression that he was the one person of interest in
the party.